Have your kids ever been a part of a fundraising campaign? It’s a great way to get kids thinking about people in need and the greater common good. My kids are part of a Destination Imagination team, and have chosen the service learning challenge as their main project for this year. This entails that they must:

decide on a pressing need

design a fundraising project

join with a corporate sponsor

carry out the fundraiser

present their project

First we brainstormed about the infinite possibilities: raising funds for homeless local animals, collecting bikes, shoes, or sports equipment for kids who don’t have any, cleaning up our nearby seashore, raising funds for a school or library in a developing country. Then they decided on what they considered the most urgent, most important cause: clean water. In their own words:

if kids don’t have clean water, it doesn’t matter about school or a library or shoes or sports. They will be too sick to do anything else. Clean water has to come first.

I can’t begin to tell you how proud I was at that moment- to see their minds using critical thinking and come to that decision was beyond impressive!

Over the next few weeks, they designed their project: they would do a video and set up a fundraising page at water.org so that the money could go directly to the organization and we could publicize our efforts. They also wanted to make a video. Water.org says that every $25 raised gives 1 person clean water for life. The kids decided to try to raise $2500, so that 100 people would have clean water for life. It is an impressive goal for 9 year olds! After researching facts on clean water, they made their video:

Every donor that gives us their address is receiving a handmade rainbow loom bracelet with a thank you card from the kids (another of their ideas!).

They will carry out the second branch of the fundraiser by collecting at school. They made up milk jugs (one per grade) and will collect money all this week. As the students drop in their change, they get to sign the milk jug with a sharpie. We have teamed up with our local supermarket and will give the top donating grade a popcorn party.

This fundraising project has been a lot of work, but the take-away lessons are immense. This group of kids is thinking about a problem and injustice that needs to be examined, thought of what they can do to help, and are following through. Though initiated as our Destination Imagination challenge, I believe that this project has changed our kids’ perspectives, and has them thinking about the world beyond their community, and other ways kids can make a difference. I can’t wait to see what the future brings!

What an amazing group of kids! So exciting to see how they are not only helping others but thinking carefully to create an effective, exciting fundraising campaign! Thank you for participating in the MLK Day of Service Blog Hop!

Good question. My kids *really* wanted to bring a well to Ethiopia, where my son is from, but Water.org chooses the community (though they do work in Ethiopia). We choose water.org after looking at different ratings of nonprofits, and also because they let us set up a web site where people could go directly.

Great for your kids! Makes me so happy to hear these inspirational stories of our youth. My kids are still a little young to start their own campaign (6,4, and 1) but we introduce them to the concept of helping others by using http://www.shareyourwish.com to share their birthday wishes! Hopefully this will sow the seeds of charity for their lives to come!!